we have helped hundreds of leadership teams in dynamic tech-based companies To rapidly build and get aligned around a winning strategic path

Welcome

Chasm Group is a team of seasoned technology professionals who
specialize in helping technology-based companies achieve market-leading
positions in both emerging and established markets. Disruptive technologies
can prosper and thrive when combined with equally innovative thinking to
establish and sustain market leadership. We are in service to and passionate
about that challenge.

From our roots in the early ‘90s helping early stage companies “cross the chasm”
from breakthrough idea to market leading reality, we have continued to dedicate
ourselves to creating business and market strategies that deliver results for
technology-based companies of all sizes, across industries, and across borders.
Comprised of senior executives with vast and diverse operational expertise, we
collaborate with our clients to devise accelerated pathways to profitable growth
through market development strategies and plans that align offers with customers;
products and companies with unique value promises; sales with performance; and
cross-functional organizations with each other to build and sustain performance
in the most dynamic industry on Earth.

Heritage

You May Know Us Through Our Books
Our intellectual property has been published far and wide, led by Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm, arguably the seminal text on high technology market development. More books followed authored by Moore, and by founding members Tom Kippola(The Gorilla Game) and Paul Wiefels(The Chasm Companion).

Challenges We Solve

Market Assessment

Markets evolve in different ways depending variously on the nature
of the technology, product category, target audience, economic
conditions, and competitive environment—all factors determining
where you compete and how you compete.

We help enterprises and organizations large and small in assessing
and diagnosing the strengths and gaps in their market penetration and
go-to-market approaches, identifying specific remedies that help point
the way to accelerated success.

Market Development Strategy & Planning

Buying behavior and market dynamics change at every stage of
technology and product adoption. Understanding this and the principles
of product—market fit is essential to developing and growing markets
effectively and efficiently. We create effective, unique market
development strategies and plans that help organizations build and
sustain compelling market positions. We do this by applying proven principles
of technology adoption, category and market analysis, application of
“pattern recognition”, and unique positioning that asserts
meaningful differentiation. We do this not in isolation but rather
through an ongoing collaboration with our clients—the people
who must embrace and execute the strategy with focus, alignment, and
resolve.

Go-To-Market Planning & Execution

Novel or disruptive technology, product, and market strategies can provide the core
foundation for market success, but only if the actual go-to-market execution reflects
strategic and tactical alignment amongst marketing, sales, and product teams to
translate vision into reality.

We have decades of combined operational experience in sales, product marketing,
marketing communications, and professional services. In addition to knowing how to
sell to real customers, we are also conversant in online and offline programs and tactics
that influence buying decisions across all stages of the buying/selling process. We can
create or optimize your marketing and selling infrastructure, content, and campaign
efforts with practical advice and programs that efficiently accomplish your goals.

Branding / Positioning / Messaging

Positioning in technology-based markets is about relevance and creating
mental “shelf space.” A brand is an ongoing promise of value that binds
a company to its customers. Effective messaging to be heard through all
the noise, must reflect a differentiated strategy. Too often, well-intentioned
efforts fall short in tech markets, compromised either by an infatuation with
the technology itself; or an inadequate appreciation of the highest-order
benefits the technology conveys to economic buyers and end users.

We create unique positioning, compelling brands, and persuasive
messaging through a deeper understanding of target customers, their
motivations to buy, their organizational imperatives, and the role
of peer network references in buying decisions. Our brand development
experience informed by our deep experience in technology and the disciplines
of consumer marketing, produces messaging tailored to issues of specific
importance to both buyers and influencers across the buying cycle,
whether B2B or B2C.

Planning for Acquisitions and Exits

Categories are created. Over time they evolve, mature, and sometimes must be reinvented. To be
successful not only in the market but to maximize value-to investors, shareholders, employees, and
founders-management teams must be able to anticipate and cope with all these possibilities.
Sometimes that means the next chapter of a company’s saga can best be written with someone else,
either through acquisition or through being acquired. We have built an expertise in helping companies
plan for and execute both.

For acquiring companies, it’s very much about how an acquisition would fit into a new strategy, for
example, to participate in higher growth categories, or execute a strategic and tactical “pivot” to more
valuable pursuits. For those companies who have come to believe that they are best suited as part
someone else’s strategy or product portfolio, we help them position themselves for both maximum
attraction and valuation.

Market Research

While informed intuition helps generate viable candidates for market entry, well-constructed primary research helps vet, validate, and guide opportunities to pursue and
how best to pursue them.

We provide the services of our industry leading research firm partner for both
qualitative and quantitative research leveraging the latest research technologies to
expose ideas and understand levels of buying commitment. We access hard-to-reach
research participants, provide turnkey services, and provide seasoned analysts who
uncover the hidden insights that inform better decisions.

Industries We Serve

Enterprise IT Hardware & Software

Infrastructure / Networking / Storage

Life Sciences & Healthcare

Mobile Technologies

Semiconductors & Related Technologies

Social Media

Outcome - Driven Perspective

Impact

We’re keenly aware that the goal and purpose of marketing and
sales organizations is to drive business results both in the
short-and long-term. This requires work that extends far beyond
simply dressing up your marketing communications, or sales pitch,
or changing your logo.

Big Ideas

We don’t seek to “boil the ocean.” We have experienced
first-hand that powerful business-building ideas, executed powerfully,
beat a “by the numbers” approach (typically devoid of creativity) every
day of the week.

Domain Expertise

Over the last two decades, we have worked with clients in dozens of different industries and different
categories. Just as important, we have also come to understand their customers. From financial
services, high technology, pharma, retailing, aerospace, content & media, and more, Chasm Group
consultants bring both a broad and deep understanding of their clients’ businesses and the customers
those clients serve.

Pattern Recognition

Sound strategy starts with the right goal—and knowing
where to start. While there may be “marketing challenges”
or “sales challenges,” if you step back, there are really
only business challenges. Chances are, we’ve seen them.

Objectivity

Because we are independent advisors, we provide both clarity
and a definitive point-of-view that ensures that the investment
in the overall effort remains free of politics, separate agendas,
toadying or pre-ordained outcomes.

Thinking That Informs and Inspires

Great companies can get stuck. Technology and globalization keep changing the game and new growth
opportunities arise, yet reallocating resources to seize the day often meet resistance. As a result,
companies end up with the same fundamental portfolio while nothing new reaches materiality. In
addition, most enterprises have “hidden” assets—often highly prized by customers and the
technical/financial community—which were previously overlooked or not exploited through positioning or
value proposition development. How do you free yourself from the pull of the past? How do organizations
achieve “escape velocity”?

You can learn more about this subject and others we’re following by
reading our blog page.

Why Chasm Group

Traditional management consulting practice can seem analysis “heavy” and recommendation “light.”
Analysis typically consists of what has happened rather than what is happening now, or more importantly,
what should happen. Such approaches may adequately serve low or slow growth categories and
enterprises. But management teams in high growth, high risk ventures—defining characteristics of
technology markets—too often lament that such engagements did not address adequately two
fundamental questions: “So what?” and “Now what?”. We understand.

As former operating executives, we often participated in these exercises. Our collective experiences led
us to believe that a better alternative to such challenges and opportunities—one that acknowledged the
particular dynamics of the world’s most volatile industry—was not only appropriate but could be highly
valued by clients.

Chasm Group specializes in collaborating with clients to develop business-building ideas and
recommendations that work in the real world. And because our clients have actively participated in their
development, organizational buy-in and alignment comes naturally rather than having to be “sold” by the
consulting team. Over the years, we have evolved our methodologies, our intellectual property, our own
skill sets and our practice focus as clients ask us to take on ever more significant assignments and roles
within their organizations.

Leadership

Each Chasm Group member has served in senior sales, marketing,
and/or management positions in technology-based industries and categories.